10 bands who are too damn heavy for their own good

Some bands have absolutely no interest in turning the heaviness down. It's just a destructive wake—be it through massive riffs or horrifying soundscapes—until there's nothing left but the fragments of what you once called a skull. So why bother putting off the inevitable?

Here are a handful of great bands that'll leave you absolutely devastated.

Stomach Earth is the sound that you hear as the Earth begins to disintegrate into the cold vacuum of space and you realize you’re absolutely helpless. Of all the slow, doom-drenched bands to kick off this, Stomach Earth’s particular brand of nihilistic void-calling just feels right. It’s music that purposefully strides with a heavy foot and leaves nothing alive in its wake. —Greg Kennelty

I'm not sure how Trap Them does it, but everything the band does just bleeds chaos. Whether it's the driving punk anthem “The Facts” or the seven-minute bludgeon-fest “Savage Climbers,” Trap Them has a knack for making every single note, every damn hit of the drum and every vocal-shredding syllable feel like it's the most urgently bone-breaking sound you've ever heard in your entire life. —Greg Kennelty

Illinois power-violence kings Weekend Nachos will rip your face off and singe it back on with their relentlessly heavy breed of hardcore punk. Their final album,Apology, was released earlier this year. They are currently finishing out their time together as a band with tour dates across the globe. (And yes, they once did a song with Patrick Stump.) —Tyler Sharp

A major part of heaviness is the atmosphere surrounding it. If your music doesn’t rely on a barrage of riffs and breathless screams alone, how else can you convey a sense of claustrophobic dread and utter mayhem? The Dreaming I by Akyhls answers that question and then some. This record is fear incarnate, from the shrieking vocals and blasting, to the distorted static and hollow sounds of absolute torture. It’s a hell of a dark ride. —Greg Kennelty

In a recent studio video for Nails' album You Will Never Be One Of Us, frontman and guitarist Todd Jones sums up the band's music in one quote, “We just want to play heavy fucking punk metal… let's get in, let's fuck ’em up and let's get out. That's what Nails is.” Honestly, it's impossible to argue with that statement. Nails have three albums thus far and there's not one second of music from the band that doesn't inspire a burning, furious rage within. —Greg Kennelty

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